Joseph Schuster to Read "The Might Have Been"

Local author Joseph Schuster will read from his novel The Might Have Been at 7 p.m. Thursday at . Schuster will also sign copies for fans.

The Might Have Been

For Edward Everett Yates, split seconds matter: the precise timing of hitting a low outside pitch, of stealing a base, of running down a fly ball. After a decade playing in the minor leagues—years after most of his peers have given up—he’s still patiently waiting for his chance at the majors. Then one day he gets called up to the St. Louis Cardinals, and finally the future he wanted unfolds before him.

But one more split second changes everything: In what should have been the game of his life, he sustains a devastating knee injury, which destroys his professional career.

Thirty years later, after sacrificing so many opportunities—a lucrative job, relationships with women who loved him, even the chance for a family—Edward Everett is barely hanging on as the manager of a minor league baseball team, still grappling with regret over the choices he made and the life he almost had. Then he encounters two players—one brilliant but undisciplined, the other eager but unremarkable—who show him that his greatest contribution may come in the last place he ever expected.

Full of passion, ambition, and possibility, The Might Have Been maps the profound and unpredictable moments that change our lives forever, and the irresistible power of a second chance.

The Author

Joseph M. Schuster has published more than 600 articles, essays and reviews in national, regional and local magazines and newspapers. His short fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, Missouri Review, The Kenyon Review, Western Humanities Review, Marlboro Review, and 108. Twice, his work has been cited among the “distinguished stories” in Best American Short Stories.

He lives outside St. Louis, Missouri, is a member of the faculty of  and holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College.